


Biscuits, Tea, and Snowana

by merryghoul



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Character bottling up emotions is coaxed into expressing them, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Support, Episode: s11e08 The Witchfinders, F/F, Insomnia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-20
Updated: 2019-05-20
Packaged: 2020-03-02 21:07:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18819028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merryghoul/pseuds/merryghoul
Summary: Yasmin has nightmares about her grade school bully in the TARDIS.  Set before the episode “The Witchfinders.”





	Biscuits, Tea, and Snowana

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AuroraCloud](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuroraCloud/gifts).



Izzy Flint haunted Yasmin’s dreams, sometimes. And Izzy was just as awful as she was in Yasmin’s youth. 

Months of Izzy’s bullying went by in minutes in Yasmin’s dreams. Izzy came to Yasmin’s school at the start of one year. She seemed friendly and shy. But then Izzy started saying things that belittled Yasmin in front of her face. It started with Izzy saying Yasmin smelled funny, and it was because of what she ate. Then she made fun of her skin, then her hair. And then Izzy told other people, people who looked more like Izzy than Yasmin, about everything she hated about Yasmin. And those people agreed with Izzy. The bullying eventually grew to a point where Yasmin’s teachers stepped in to stop it. Yasmin’s teachers appropriately punished Izzy and anyone like her for bullying Yasmin. But the damage was done. Yasmin played and ate alone at school for a while. Her family had various reactions to her bullying. Her mother wanted to be there for her, but her mother had to go to work. Her father tried to make Yasmin feel better, but he could never figure out a way to make her happy. Sonya only teased her.

Most times Yasmin would wake up at home after having this nightmare. This time, however, Yasmin had this dream inside her bedroom in the TARDIS. And the Doctor was passing by Yasmin’s bedroom as she was crying out “Stop!” in her dreams.

The Doctor bust into Yasmin’s bedroom. “Who’s in here? Who’s hurting my friend?”

Yasmin was already awake by this point. “No one’s in here. I had a nightmare.”

“Oh.”

“I don’t think I can go back to sleep for a while.”

“Would you like to go to the kitchen with me and get a cuppa and some biscuits? Maybe it’ll help you fall asleep.”

Yasmin climbed out of bed. “Okay.”

 

“I’m usually one for an Earl Grey.” The Doctor poured hot water from a tea kettle into two tea cups with tea bags in them. The two were in a kitchen in the TARDIS. “But the TARDIS thinks for right now you need a chamomile tea. Something to help you go back to sleep.” The Doctor sat beside Yasmin, who was looking glumly at her biscuits and tea. “What’s wrong?”

Yasmin told the Doctor about her recurring nightmares about Izzy. 

“I’m sorry you had to go through that. What kind of friend goes up and tries to befriend you, only to turn everyone against you?”

“Doctor! I already told you!”

“It was a hypothetical question. I didn’t mean to hurt you.” The Doctor took a sip of tea. “I’ve gone through situations that are kinda like yours. It’s more like me coming to a place somewhere in time and space, and then someone claims I’m going to take over their town or their country or their planet.”

Yasmin still looked down at her biscuits and tea. 

“I wish I could help you feel better. But it’s hard. I could go back in time and lecture Izzy on how she hurt you, but I feel like I’d alter your timeline. And your fam doesn’t know me before I met you. Meeting them before meeting you would be awkward just to get them to pay attention to you.”

“I wish I had a friend like you back then. I wouldn’t have felt alone.” Yasmin finally took a bite out of one of her biscuits and had a sip of her tea. 

“What do you think I can do for you?”

“Be the friend you wanted to be for me when I was young.”

“Oh, so...how does that work?”

“Just be you, you know? I know I haven’t thanked you for biscuits and tea, but thank you. I needed that.”

“Okay.”

“Offer up tea and biscuits and an ear whenever you can. It’s nice to talk to someone about things I haven’t been able to really talk about to other people, you know?”

“I guess it is.”

 

The Doctor and Yasmin finished their biscuits and tea. But Yasmin was still up.

“You know I don’t have to go to sleep, but I know humans. And I know that you need sleep. So why don’t you want to go back to bed?”

“I don’t want to dream about it again. I don’t want to dream about _her_ again.”

“Maybe I can come to bed with you.”

Yasmin looked at the Doctor.

“No, not like that. I mean, unless you want that.”

“I don’t feel like doing that, Doctor.” 

“Well, then. Disregard that. I was thinking maybe I could hold your hand so you can go to sleep, because I don’t want you drowsy where the TARDIS takes us next.”

“That sounds great.”

 

The Doctor couldn’t help herself. She only promised to hold Yasmin’s hand while she slept. Instead she also started telling Yasmin her favorite fairy tale, “Snow White and the Seven Keys to Doomsday.” This fairy tale was similar to the German fairy tale of “Snow White,” except there were no wizards, princes, and near-fatal magic spells and potions in the Time Lord version. They were replaced with Rassilon, figurative keys that could destroy Gallifrey, and dragons. 

The Doctor had no idea whether Yasmin thought her fairy tale was silly or not, like a lot of her companions from Earth that had heard “Snow White” first. Maybe Yasmin even thought the tale boring. But the fairy tale did the trick. Yasmin was able to sleep before the Doctor could finish the fairy tale. The Doctor could only hope Yasmin dreamed of Snowana and her prince Antonio instead of Izzy. 

The Doctor let go of Yasmin’s hand. “Good, um...don’t know what to call it, really. It’s not really day or night inside the Time Vortex. Uh, good Time Vortex. And sweet dreams.” She kissed her forehead. It didn’t feel right to kiss her lips in the moment, but she’d try to remember to get a kiss from her when she woke up.

The Doctor quietly walked out of Yasmin’s room, on call if Izzy tried to slip into Yasmin’s dreams again.

**Author's Note:**

> The short story/“fairy tale” “Snow White and the Seven Keys to Doomsday,” as written by Justin Richards for _Doctor Who The Official Annual 2012,_ is alluded to (but not fully told) in this story.


End file.
